State Record Falls as Union Catholic Sweeps Union County Relays

The Union Catholic track and field teams owned the Union County Relays on Saturday as the Vikings threw down several sizzling performances, highlighted by a state record in the girls 4x200, on the way to sweep of the team titles at Gary Kehler Stadium in Westfield.

The UC girls simply tore apart the track with a performance for the ages as the Vikings put together the greatest showing in meet history and one of the best by any team in any county in state history. UC shattered five meets records on the track on the way to its third straight title, 125-58 over runner-up Westfield.

On the boys side, UC outscored runner-up Elizabeth, 116-84, to win its 6th title in the past 7 years.Full results of the meet

The most impressive performance of the meet came in the girls 4x200 where Uc's Sydney McLaughlin led off with a 23.2 split. Khamil Evans followed with a 24.3. Then Amaya Chadwick went 24.7 and Sydney Tucker anchored in 25.2 to stop the clock at 1:37.53. That erased the 14-year-old state record of 1:37.77 set in 2003 by Franklin, and is No. 14 in the nation this season.

The girls also won the 4x100 in a meet record and NJ #2 47.72, the 4x400 in a meet record 3:51.48, the shuttle hurdles in a NJ #1 and meet record 59.46, the sprint medley in a NJ #1 and meet record 4:03.67, the triple jump, the 400 hurdles, the high jump, and the long jump. The Vikings also placed second in the 4x800 (9:29.75), second in the 4x1,600 (22:28.25).

In the boys competition, lots of Vikings came up with personal best performances to ignite the attack.Justin Cadas split 4:27 on the 4th place distance medley relay, 1:57.0 on the winning 4x800, and 4:27.5 on the first-place 4x1,600.

Ryan McLaughlin continued his breakout sophomore season with personal bests of 55.16 in the 400 hurdles and 20-4 in the long jump, and he also split 50.1 on the runner-up 4x400, and had a very strong leg on the winning shuttle hurdles (1:01.62).

Brandon Patterson came up huge in the field with personal best throws of 53-6 in the shot put and 134-7 in the discus, which was a 20 foot PR. Uchenna Duru also had a huge PR of 121-7 to help UC place 2nd in the discus.

Krishna White came up with a four foot PR of 46-1 in the triple jump and went 6-0 in the high jump. Isaac Eason cleared a PR of 6-0 in the high jump, and Conor Reilly had PR's of 13-0 in the pole vault and 39-9 in the triple.